Wicca
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Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries throughout the world. It was first popularised in 1954 by a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed. He claimed that the religion, of which he was an initiate, was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which had existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe. Wicca is thus sometimes referred to as the Old Religion. The veracity of Gardner's claims cannot be independently proven, and it is thought that written Wiccan theology began to be compiled no earlier than the 1920s. Various related Wiccan traditions have since evolved or been adapted from the form established by Gardner, which came to be called Gardnerian Wicca. These other traditions of Wicca each have distinctive beliefs, rituals, and practices. Many traditions of Wicca remain secretive and require that members be initiated. There is also a movement of Eclectic or Solitary Wiccans who do not believe that any doctrine or traditional initiation is necessary in order to practice Wicca. The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated that at least 134,000 adults identified themselves as Wiccans in the United States.
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[edit] Core concepts
Because there is no centralised organisation in Wicca, and no single "orthodoxy", the beliefs and practices of Wiccans can vary substantially, both between individuals and between traditions. Typically, the main religious principles, ethics and ritual structures are shared, since they are key elements of traditional teachings and published works on the subject.
[edit] Wicca as a magical religion
As practiced by initiates, Wicca is a variety of witchcraft founded on religious and magical concepts, and most of its adherents identify as witches. As such it is distinguished not only by its religious beliefs, but by its initiatory system, organisational structure, secrecy, and practice of magic. Initiatory Wiccans generally will not Proselytization|proselytise, and may even deny membership to some individuals, since once initiated a person is considered to be a priest or priestess and is expected to develop the skills and responsibility that that entails.
Wicca is only one variety of witchcraft, with specific beliefs and practices. Initiates worship a goddess and a god; they observe the festivals of the eight Sabbats of the year and the full-moon Esbats, using distinctive ritual forms; and they attempt to live by a code of ethics. This distinguishes the religion from other forms of witchcraft which may or may not have specific religious, ethical or ritual elements, and which are practiced by people of many religions, as well as by some atheists.
There is also a strong "Eclectic", or non-initiatory Wiccan movement, involving much more variation in religious beliefs, and in which secrecy and organizational structure play a less important role. Generally, Eclectic Wiccans will adopt similar ritual structures and ethical principles to initiates. A few Eclectic Wiccans do not consider themselves witches nor do they practice magic.
Many Wiccans, though not all, call themselves Pagans, though the umbrella term Paganism encompasses many faiths that have nothing to do with Wicca or witchcraft.
[edit] Wiccan views on divinity
Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.
According to Gardner, the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as The Summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the living. Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognised by the witches as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them.
Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct. Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have observed that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, and embracing a more traditional pagan worldview.
Many groups and individuals are drawn to particular deities from a variety of pantheons (often Celtic, Greek, or from elsewhere in Europe), whom they honour specifically. Some examples are Cernunnos and Brigit from Celtic mythology, Hecate and Diana.
Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt to have a relationship with them as personifications of universal principles or as Jungian archetypes.
According to current Gardnerians, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret, and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft. However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia. These are the names used in the prototype Book of Shadows known as Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magical (sic).
For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolised as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.
Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven, which is led by a High Priestess and High Priest in partnership, with the High Priestess having the final word. In some traditions, notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at all.
Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things. For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.
A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to effect divine possession.
[edit] Morality
Wiccan morality is summarised in a brief statement found within a text called the Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do what you will." ("An" is an archaic word meaning "if".) The Rede differs from some other well-known moral codes in that, while it does contain a prohibition, it is largely an encouragement to act freely. It is normally considered that the prohibition against harm also covers self-harm.
The origin of the Rede is unknown, its earliest mention being at a meeting held by the witchcraft magazine "Pentagram" spoken by Doreen Valiente. Gerald Gardner suggested that it was taken by witches from the legendary ethic of the fabled King Pausol which was "Do what you like so long as you harm no one". Nevertheless, the similarity of the phrasing of the Rede (and explicit and verbatim phrasing of other texts) suggests that this statement is partly based on the Law of Thelema as stated by occultist Aleister Crowley.
Many Wiccans also promote the Law of Threefold Return, a belief that anything that one does will be returned to them threefold. In other words, good deeds are magnified in like form back to the doer, and so are ill deeds.
American author Gerina Dunwich disagrees with the concept of threefold return on the grounds that it is inconsistent with more than one law of physics. Pointing out that the origin of the Law of Threefold Return is traceable to Raymond Buckland in the 20th century, Dunwich is of the opinion that, "There is little backing to support it as anything other than a psychological law." Dunwich offers an alternative interpretation, that whatever we do on a physical, mental, or spiritual level will sooner or later affect us, in either a positive or a negative way, on all three levels of being.
A possible prototype to the Rule of Three may be found in the prescribed ritual practice of the newly intiated second degree Wiccan scourging "her" initiator with three times as many blows at the end of the ceremony as "she" has received from "him" at the beginning. In Gardner's 1949 novel High Magic's Aid, which he maintained contained elements of Wiccan belief presented in the form of fiction, he wrote of this scourging: "For this is the joke of Witchcraft, the Witch knows though the initiate does not, that she will get three times what she gave, so she does not strike hard."
Many traditional Wiccans also follow, or at least consider, a set of 161 laws, commonly called the Ardanes. A common criticism of these rules is that they represent outdated concepts and/or produce counterproductive results in Wiccan contexts. Modern authors, specifically Doreen Valiente, have also noted that these rules were most likely invented by Gardner himself in mock-archaic language as the byproduct of inner conflict within Gerald Gardner's original coven over the issue of press relations, to justify Gardner's own authority over that of his High Priestess.
Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate a set of eight virtues mentioned Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, being mirth, reverence, honour, humility, strength, beauty, power and compassion. In Valiente's poem they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy.
Although Gardner's covens initially demonstrated an aversion to Homosexuality, claiming that it brought down "the curse of the goddess", it is now accepted in many traditions of Wicca.
A common belief amongst Wiccans is that no magic, even of a beneficent nature, should be performed on any other person without that person's direct informed consent. This stems from the understanding that it would interfere with that person's free will and thus constitute "harm" in violation of the Rede. This especially applies to love spells.
[edit] Secrecy and initiation
Some practitioners of traditional initiatory Wicca consider that the term 'Wicca' correctly applies only to an initiate of a traditional branch of the religion (Gardnerian or Alexandrian Wicca, or their offshoots such as Black Forest Wicca) because solitary Wicca or eclectic Wicca are different in practice from the religion established by Gardner. However, the term has increasingly come to be adopted by people who are not initiates of a traditional lineaged coven. These non-initiatory Wiccans may undertake rituals of self-dedication, and generally work alone as solitary practitioners or in casual groups, rather than in organised covens. Thus non-initiatory Wicca shares some of the basic religious principles, ethics and the ritual system of 'traditional' or 'initiatory' Wicca, but not the organisational structure, or the belief that Wiccan initiation requires a transferral of power from an initiator. Therefore, some practitioners of traditional initiatory Wicca have adopted the term 'British Traditional Wicca' to differentiate themselves from this movement.
Within traditional forms of Wicca there are three degrees of initiation. First degree is required to become a witch and gain membership of a coven; those who aspire to teach may eventually undergo second and third degree initiations, conferring the title of "High Priest" or "High Priestess" and allowing them to establish new covens.
[edit] Organisation within Wicca
Initiatory Wicca is organised into covens of initiated priests and priestesses. Covens are autonomous, and are generally headed by a High Priest and a High Priestess working in partnership, being a couple who have each been through their first, second and third degrees of initiation. Occasionally the leaders of a coven are only second-degree initiates, in which case they come under the rule of the parent coven. Initiation and training of new priesthood is most often performed within in a coven environment, but this is not a necessity, and a few initiated Wiccans are unaffiliated with any coven.
In contrast, "eclectic" Wiccans are more often than not solitary practitioners. Some of these "solitaries" do, however, attend gatherings and other community events, but reserve their spiritual practices (Sabbats, Esbats, spell-casting, worship, magical work, etc.) for when they are alone.
A commonly quoted Wiccan tradition holds that the ideal number of members for a coven is thirteen, though this is not held as a hard-and-fast rule. Indeed, many U.S. covens are far smaller, though the membership may be augmented by unaffiliated Wiccans at "open" rituals. When covens grow beyond their ideal number of members, they often split (or "hive") into multiple covens, yet remain connected as a group. A grouping of multiple covens is known as a grove in many traditions.
Initiation into a coven is traditionally preceded by a waiting period of at least a year and a day. A course of study may be set during this period. In some covens a "dedication" ceremony may be performed during this period, some time before the initiation proper, allowing the person to attend certain rituals on a probationary basis.
Some solitary Wiccans also choose to study for a year and a day before their self-dedication to the religion.
[edit] Ritual
In typical rites, the coven assemble inside a ritually cast and purified magic circle. Prayers to the God and Goddess are said, the "Guardians" of the North, South, East and West are welcomed, and spells are sometimes worked. An altar is usually present in the circle, on which ritual tools are placed. Before entering the circle, some traditions fast for the day, and/or ritually bathe. After a ritual has finished, the God, Goddess and Guardians are thanked and the circle is reopened.
[edit] Tools
Many Wiccans use a special set of altar tools in their rituals; these can include a broom (besom), cauldron, chalice, wand, Book of Shadows, altar cloth, athame (a knife used in rituals to channel energy), boline (or a knife for cutting things in the physical world), candles, crystals, pentacle and/or incense. Representations of the God/Goddess are often displayed. The tools themselves are just that — tools — and have no innate powers of their own, though they are usually dedicated or charged with a particular purpose, and used only in that context. For this reason, it is rude to touch another's tools without permission.
[edit] Ritual attire
A sensationalised aspect of Wicca, particularly in Gardnerian Wicca, is the traditional practice of working in the nude, also known as skyclad. Though many Wiccans do perform rituals skyclad, at least on occasion, others do not. In other situations Wiccans may work robed, often in white or black. Some wear normal clothes. Even "Renaissance-faire"-type clothing is not uncommon. Still others wear robes with stoles which represent their tradition and/or standing within the tradition.
[edit] Ritual occasions
Wiccans typically mark each full moon (and in some cases new moons) with a ritual called an Esbat. They also celebrate eight main holidays called Sabbats. Four of these, the cross-quarter days, are greater festivals, coinciding with old Celtic fire festivals. These are Samhain, May Eve or Beltane, Imbolc and Lammas (or Lughnasadh). The four lesser festivals are the Summer Solstice (or Litha) and Winter Solstice (or Yule), and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, sometimes called Ostara and Mabon. See also the Wheel of the Year.
The names of these holidays are often taken from Germanic pagan and Celtic polytheistic holidays. However, the festivals are largely only similar in name, as they are not reconstructive in nature nor do they often resemble their historical counterparts, instead exhibiting a form of universalism. Ritual observations may display cultural influence from the holidays from which they take their name as well as influence from other unrelated cultures.
Wiccan weddings can be "bondings", "joinings", or "eclipses" but are most commonly called "handfastings". Some Wiccans observe the practice of a trial marriage for a year and a day, which some traditions hold should be contracted on Lammas (Lughnasadh), as this was the traditional time for trial, "Telltown marriages" among the Irish. This practice is documented in the fourth and fifth volumes of the Brehon law texts, which are compilations of the opinions and judgements of the Brehon class of Druids (in this case, Irish). The texts as a whole deal with a copious amount of detail for the Insular Celts.
Some perform a ritual called a Wiccaning, analogous to a Christening for an infant, the purpose of which is to present the infant to the God and Goddess for protection. Despite this, in accordance with the importance put on free will in Wicca the child is not necessarily expected or required to follow a Pagan path should they not wish to do so when they get older.
[edit] History
Main article: History of Wicca
[edit] Discrimination against Wiccans
See Main article: Discrimination against Wiccans and Pagans
[edit] Wiccan traditions
A "tradition" in Wicca refers to a branch of the religion with specific teachings and practices, often involving the concept of a lineage that is transferred by initiation. There are many such traditions, sub-traditions and lineages; there are also many solitary or eclectic Wiccans who do not align themselves with any particular lineage. Some of the well-known traditions include:
- Alexandrian Wicca
- Blue Star Wicca
- Correllian Nativist Church (Correllian Wicca)
- Dianic Wicca (Feminist witchcraft)
- Faery Wicca
- Gardnerian Wicca
- Kemetic Wicca
- Odyssean Wicca
- Seax-Wica
There are also other forms of witchcraft which don't claim origins in Wicca, such as the Feri Tradition, Reclaiming and Stregheria, as well as distinct varieties of Eclectic Wicca, such as Christian Wicca and Wiccan Atheism. Two generally accepted and informative books describing the various "paths" within the North American pagan community are Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today and Starhawk's The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliographical and encyclopedic sources
- Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 2002).
- Anne Carson, Goddesses and Wise Women: The Literature of Feminist Spirituality 1980-1992 An Annotated Bibliography (Freedom, California: Crossing Press, 1992).
- Chas S. Clifton and Graham Harvey, The Paganism Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
- James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999).
- J. Gordon Melton and Isotta Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America: A Bibliography, 2nd ed., (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992).
- Shelly Rabinovitch and James R. Lewis, eds., The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism (New York: Kensington Publishing, 2002).
[edit] Academic studies
- Nikki Bado-Fralick, Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual (Oxford University Press, 2005)
- Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (AltaMira Press, 2006)
- Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999)
- Helen A. Berger, A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999).
- Jon P. Bloch, New Spirituality, Self, and Belonging: How New Agers and Neo-Pagans Talk About Themselves (Westport: Praeger, 1998).
- Graham Harvey, Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth (New York: New York University Press, 1997).
- Lynne Hume, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997).
- James R. Lewis, ed., Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- T. M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (London: Picador, 1994).
- Sabina Magliocco, Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
- Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel, eds., Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998).
- Sarah M. Pike, Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001).
- Kathryn Rountree, Embracing the witch and the goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
- Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).
- Allen Scarboro, Nancy Campbell, Shirely Stave, Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven (Praeger Publishers, 1994) [1]
[edit] External links
- The Witches' Voice: Neopagan news and networking site.
- Covenant of the Goddess (USA)
- The Pagan Federation - UK ; Canada - Organisation whose stated mission is "To Promote and Defend the Pagan Traditions".
- The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies - Official site for this scholarly journal; includes online articles from 2004 onward.
- Traditional British Witchcraft site.
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